


Dr Tucker

by ellymelly



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-03-03 23:54:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2892752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellymelly/pseuds/ellymelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Doctor (Malcolm Tucker) tries to turn his various work mates into companions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

It took five years for the Doctor to tire of moonlighting in his secret life as Director of Communications.

_More correctly,_ it took five years for the crowd at Number 10 to catch on and haul him before an entirely unnecessarily tribunal to save their own asses from being tangled in one of his grand, orchestrated fantasies. Malcolm Tucker sat there dutifully and stared down their cameras with his dark, infinite eyes that had seen stars burn and for once told the truth.

He was pretty certain that in the end, they'd preferred his lies.

Humans were like that; one great, complicated paradox.

“Honestly, if press secretaries told the truth they'd have to drag the entirety of the political spectrum before their pet tribunal instead of me. I'm the greying tip of the iceberg. I can see cabinet now, moving deck chairs on the Titanic while a gaping hole leaks ministers into the ocean. Lying isn't an art – it's a fact.” The Doctor muttered a little more, inspecting his Tardis for scratches. It had been stowed away in the stationery cupboard for quite some time – attracting paper clips, apparently. They were all stuck to the door. He brushed them off.

Phil, affectionately, _'fop with the hair'_ , lingered in the doorway watching on with mild concern. Tucker was mad in more ways that one but stroking an old police box in a cupboard was right up there with the time he'd taken a shot of pain thinner.

“You're _English_.” Phil folded his arms, grinning like an idiot.

“I'm _alien,_ ” Tucker corrected.

“Actually kinda Scottish... That's right, yeah?” It was difficult to tell if Phil was trying to wind the Scot up (really he needn't bother) or was entirely genuine.

“Timelord.”

“Like Highlander,” Phil nodded confidently, still watching Tucker with the blue box. He seemed to be searching for keys.

“ _Gallifrey..._ ” Malcolm Tucker found a set of keys in his coat and jingled them with a smirk.

“Glasgow?”

“Galli-” Tucker spun around, looking cross. “Who the fuck are you?”

Phil waved. “Phil. Formally your favourite chew toy until you discovered catnip and your true nature.”

“Ah...” Malcolm's sharp gaze tore little strips off the prey in the doorway. “Oh yeah... The fourth Musketeer nobody can remember. Where are all your friends? Did they run off to play hide-and-lose-the-idiot again?”

“That's not very nice. Aliens are meant to be all friendly – and grey.”

“Scots are historically mad as fuck, so perhaps you were right the first time.”

There was the briefest flicker of a moment in which Malcolm considered asking the single celled organism to come with but honestly there were exotic particles with longer half lives than that thought.

“Don't you have a government to cripple? I'm busy. Scurry off now. Go find something to staple to your hair or whatever it is the government does to pass the time these days.”

After Phil left, the Doctor, previously known as Malcolm Tucker, took a good look at his hair in the mirror. It was definitely flecked with grey. More grey than he remembered. He was sort of small and anorexic in a rodent manner – highly strung and totally mental. Those few years in politics had given his right eyebrow a permanent arch that made him look both surprised _and_ annoyed.

“Not too bad.”

The Doctor, Malcolm Tucker, slid the key into the Tardis lock and vanished inside the blue box. A short while later, the cupboard made a very odd wheezing sound while a blue glow faded in and out of time and space.

“Neat...” whispered Phil, hiding in the shadows.

*~*~*

Olly pulled open his office door and propelled himself straight into the side of a blue box. He bounced off, falling to the floor under a sheet of hot coffee.

“Blimey – bugger of a – Jesus?” he looked up. “Where the hell did that come from?” And why was it in his office!

A blue door opened and a terrifying head popped out.

“Fuck – Malcolm...” He was like a bloody demon. “Aren't you meant to be in jail – or on trial?”

“Hey – either come the fuck in or fuck the fuck off. Don't mope about on the floor complain'. And,” he waved a long, bony finger in Olly's direction, “don't make some snarky remark about the temporal distortion causing a disproportionately large space to be confined into a nonsensically small police box. Thirteen hundred years and I've heard it all. 'Scottish alien' should pretty much cover all of your questions.”

Just as Olly managed to get to his feet and drip a little of the coffee onto the floor, he was handed a clipboard with some kind of contract on it in a text that looked like hieroglyphs on Acid.

“Sign!” Malcolm insisted.

“What's this?” Olly took the pen and clipboard but stopped short of signing. This was Tucker after all. It could be anything. He might be signing away a liver.

“Inter-dimensional insurance. It means that if I leave you somewhere and forget to pick you up – or you find yourself inadvertently eaten, you can't sue me for negligence or abandonment.”

Olly shook his head. “I'm not signing this.”

“Door, paper, pen – one of these things is _not_ like the others.” The human still wasn't understanding. Honestly how hard was it? Every mutation was making the human race backtrack through its very _few_ genetic achievements. Soon they'd crawl into the swamps. “Companions are a dime a dozen, sweet heart. I can fly down the street on any world and pick some random creature up and they'll do just as good a job as you. Money's with the mad man and his box – hell, I could have a whole company of little companions, now there's an idea. They'd be like coats that I could pull out depending on the weather. The Tardis could set up an inventory based on their minimal skill level and -”

“Aren't you getting ahead of yourself?” Olly frowned.

The Doctor tapped the clipboard. “Sign.”

“You don't even have one companion yet and frankly if you can't convince me to follow you into the abyss you're going to be shit out of luck with the rest of the nutters that live and work in this asylum.”

“Sign.”

“What's the difference? It's not like you're an actual ancient time travelling alien.” With that, Olly signed having no idea that he'd just agreed to a universe, time-bound contract. It would have been less binding to sell his soul. Still, anything to get Malcolm Tucker and his bloody box out of his office.

*~*~*

Malcolm Tucker, now with his first companion in tow, lurked in Nicola Murray's office. Malcolm was sitting on her desk while Olly slinked in the corner, using a dying plant as cover while he pretended not to be there. At first he'd been rather sceptical about the police box being a time machine but after being stabbed at the Battle of Hastings, Olly was on board with the idea. His arm still had a bloodied bandage on it. Malcolm insisted he call him, 'The Doctor' now but he didn't seem to have much in the way of 'mending' skills.

“All right, Olly?” Nicola asked, as she walked back into her office. Honestly she tried to come in here as little as possible, mainly due to the probability of an angry Scotsman being inside. There were two of them running around somewhere and today she had the pleasure of the less-attractive, stick insect version and his pet mortal.

“Malcolm Tucker – if it isn't the devil himself come to burn a new set of footprints on my new carpet.” Nicola started. It annoyed her intensely that even the clothes she was wearing right now were under Malcolm's advisement. There was no part of the political world safe from his influence. Even exiled his opinions screamed out of this place, oozing out of the mortar.

“It's a simple enough question,” Malcolm repeated. “Do you – or don't you?”

She sighed heavily. “You're a truly horrible person.”

What had he done now?

“ _Truly horrible_?” Malcolm repeated, clutching his chest as though she'd stabbed him straight through his hearts. “That's the best you can do? It's not even particularly offensive considering how far I go out of my way to ensure that primeval pond scum like yourself see me as the spectre of your inevitable doom. _Truly horrible_ is practically a compliment, a sort of sign from the parting clouds of political-correct-heaven that you're paying-a-fucking-ttention to your surrounding. Yes, well done _you_ for noticing my intense dislike of you and your wallpaper dresses. Your constituency must have had their eyeballs gouged out before they voted for you again.”

“Oh my god – I can't believe I signed the damn paper...” Olly muttered in dismay from the corner as 'The Doctor' bit into Nicola and gave her a good verbal shake. He certainly had an odd way of wooing would-be travellers.

“ _Truly horrible,_ ” Malcolm continued, sliding off the desk so that he could slowly stalk Nicola toward the nearest wall, “has about as much imagination thrown at it as your last, finger-painted policy which I had to tidy off the floor before the parents came home. Here I am, returning from a leisurely evening at Number 10 to find lipstick smeared on the DOSAC doors and every wall freshly painted to hide all the dead bodies. Next time it'll be _you_ behind the panels and that fucking twat Olly will be in the corner, bits of corpse all over his natural perm. We'll get him a little cot and a soft, snugly toy to chew on.”

“Right here. Listening...” Olly stuck up his hand but he was ignored.

“Are you done?” Nicola asked, putting her reports down on the table. Why was there a large, police box in her office? Odd...

“Yeah,” Malcolm shrugged. “I charge extra after eleven but if you want the full show I'll be in my office skinning members of the opposition that still support you.”

Olly had his head in his heads. He was going to be stuck in this mess alone.

“So... to summarise,” Nicola held up her hands, “just so I have this straight. You are a time travelling alien who wants me to follow you around – with Olly – like a pet.”

“Kinda.”

“I have children.”

“Time machine you dozy mare...” Tucker rolled his eyes. “It goes back and forth – you know _hell_ I should have thought about this to get you to those press conferences on time. Would have saved me several heart attacks and a shit load of negative energy directed at objects that remind me of you.”

“Will _you_ be there?”

Malcolm shifted, looking ever so slightly less hostile. “It's _my_ time machine.”

“Bloody hell you mean I'd be stuck with your ghoulish face for all of time? What if you leave me on some rock or throw me into a supernova?”

“That's actually a lot harder to do than you think it is,” Malcolm insisted.

“Is that box it then?” She pointed at Tardis. “It's about the size of a lift.”

“So?”

“So I'm claustrophobic.”

“Uh no – actually,” Olly chimed in helpfully, “it's bigger on the inside.”

“Hold on,” Nicola narrowed her eyes. “Olly too? Hell no.”

“What's wrong with Olly?”

“Get the time machine out of my office, Malcolm. The Prime Minister's looking for you. Something about a pending jail sentence...”

“Guessing that's a 'no' then...” Malcolm gave up. “Come on, then.”

As the Doctor and Olly entered the Tardis, Nicola could just make out Olly say, _'can we go somewhere without swords this time?'_


	2. A Planet Without Swords

“This is actually an alien planet though – right? I mean a proper one, not just a moon or oversized asteroid covered in dust with a couple of abandoned research bases... It's an honest, solid lump of rock in orbit around a star that isn't our own.” Ollie was eyeing the door of the Tardis with great suspicion. Every time he opened it his head was nearly taken off. Maybe the Tardis just didn't like him. Or maybe he was bait. Yeah. That'd be right. The overgrown thistle had brought him along as a lure for all the hungry space-fish.

“It's a _proper_ planet!” Malcolm insisted, throwing a few more switches until the time machine stopped wheezing and came to a complete stop. “There's even multicellular life that you can skewer and put over a camp fire – little furry cute ones that look a bit like baby owls on Ice.”

Ollie rolled his eyes. “Yeah all right,” he sighed. “You can stop taking the piss. I thought, 'Doctor Tucker' might be an improvement but you're just as grumpy in the blue box as you were at Number 10.”

“Hey – _hey_ ,” Malcolm stalked over to his companion. “It's the eyebrows.” He pressed his bony finger into Ollie's chest. “Angry Scottish eyebrows.”

Ollie waited for Malcolm to head safely toward the door before he added quietly, _“It's not the bloody eyebrows.”_

Full credit, this was an alien planet.

“Hang on,” Ollie pushed through the foliage of an overtly amorous alien planet with fronds the size of arm chairs. “Are we here for some kind of purpose? We appear to be heading through the jungle in a very direct and wait... Wait. _Wait!_ ” Ollie pointed wildly at the person coming down the jungle path in the opposite direction. They looked extremely familiar and before Ollie could say anything else, Tucker's familiar screech rang out.

“SAM!” he nearly flattened Ollie as he overtook him. “Hey Sam – Sam - Sam.” Tucker – the terrifying-all-swearing-alien was grinning, teeth glinting.

“Thought you'd forgotten about me,” she replied, handing him a metal suitcase. She was dressed in her usual skirt suit – hair neatly pinned back as though she'd stepped straight out of the office and not an alien jungle.

“Ah – you got them,” Tucker took it from her. It was heavy, giving him a sudden and permanent tilt.

“Well, I remembered where I buried them,” Sam shrugged. “Two weeks, Malc – _two,_ ” Sam stopped suddenly when she saw none other than the useless twat Ollie stumbling along in Malcolm's wake. “Is that a snack for the trip home?”

Malcolm laughed earnestly at his P.A. “I considered it.”

“You know – I thought you were the nice one,” Ollie pointed at Sam. “You're just as a broken as the leaning monument to humanity over there.”

“Don't worry, I'll explain later,” he whispered to Sam before turning the whole party around to walk back toward the Tardis. “Come on – that's it for sight seeing. Let's go...”

“What? But we just -” Ollie sighed and pointed helplessly at the alien world he'd barely got a foot on. “We _literally_ just got here, Malcolm. Whole other planet. Are you seriously suggesting that we just swung by to pick up your -” he _nearly_ said 'girlfriend' but some huge warning switched went off inside his head and pinned his mouth shut. The last person who accused Malcolm of dating his P.A. was never seen or heard from again. MI5 was still denying any involvement in the disappearance.

When they returned to the Tardis, Malcolm carefully set the briefcase down on the floor and stared at it. He'd waited a long time to dig this thing up – longer than most people realised. Time was a funny thing – it was _flexible_ and during his current job the Doctor had taken little 'breaks'. Short stretches – no more than ten or so years at a time. There was a reason that he looked like he'd had a rough night sometimes. Hell he'd never forget the time he and Sam were stuck on an asteroid with flesh-eating space bats and _still_ had to pull up for a conference with the PM the next morning.

“So... what did we come all this way for?” Ollie asked bravely.

“This, my knitted friend, is the magic bullet to save my alien twat from prison.”

Ollie frowned and looked around at the spaceship. “Couldn't you sort of avoid prison by not going back? This _is_ a spaceship – and a time machine. You could undo your ill-advised rant to the Goodling inquiry and go on your merry way.”

Sam was shaking her head. “There are laws,” she insisted. “Rules about how this sort of thing works.”

“In short, she won't let me,” Malcolm replied. “Sam's very serious about 'time law'. I have to do this the hard way and make no mistake, I'm not about to give up my office to that fucking pin-cushion, amoeba whose greatest concern in life revolves around the brand of skinny milk in his latte. No. No that desk is four hundred years old and I will not have it polluted by illiterate little shits and their interpretative dance sessions.”

“We have a plan,” Sam translated.

“And you've kidnapped me for this plan... oh shit.” Ollie cupped his face in his hands. “Here I was thinking that we were actually taking a time machine for a joyride through space.”

“He signed the contract?” Sam asked Malcolm – who nodded. “Well then, he has no choice but to help us. Weren't there meant to be others?”

“They turned me down.”

“I told you to be 'charming'?” Sam frowned.

“Oh he was. Charming like a rotweiler with a squeaky toy.” Ollie knew that whatever Malcolm's plan was it would be a miracle if he didn't end up in jail and/or unemployed. “Brilliant bit of work – I especially liked the bit where Terry asked if it wasn't too 'loud' a colour for a box and that maybe he should consider painting the space ship 'grey' to reflect the present state of the party's abject poverty. Where's the other angry Scot?”

“Sleeping off a massive hangover,” Malcolm replied. “So you might want to keep your complaining down a few octaves.”

“Shit Malcolm I was _kidding_ – how many people know you're an a time travelling alien?”

He shrugged.

“And you were worried about Nicola's teenage daughter being a complication...”

“Hey – I'm nobody's complication. I am the solution – I am _every_ solution. I am the fucking _omni_ solution that fuels the hopeless causes and lifeless policies that everyone's so fond of vomiting up onto my desk for me to sell with a whip and extremely dead horse dragged along the racetrack by an overweight jockey with haemorrhoids.”

Ollie shook his head, lifting his hands in surrender. “Okay! It's too early for this. Who do I have to fuck to get a coffee around here?”

Sam's gaze lifted to Ollie.

Ollie frowned.

Malcolm leered closer with the threat of disembowelment in his eyes.

“Think I'll just have a yoghurt – or whatever this is...” Ollie picked up a small container of what he assumed to be food. The container made a squeaking noise. Ollie immediately dropped it.

*~*~*

“Three-hundred and four missed calls,” Sam held up her Blackberry for Malcolm to see.

“How long were we gone this time?” he asked, as he tried to reposition a cupboard in front of the Tardis. He'd parked it in his office this time. It was more convenient than traipsing over to DoSAC every time he wanted to sleep.

“A whole day,” she complained. “We were meant to be back yesterday before four. You have a meeting with the press in two hours.” Sam handed him a freshly dry cleaned suit. “Don't worry, they can't arrest you yet and the PM can't sack you until you're found guilty of something so just – behave and try not to scare any new ministers.”

The last thing his P.A. handed him was his ID card – always with a snicker though he couldn't figure out why. Well _yes_ it was actually his psychic paper because he'd never been able to get a real one but whenever he looked at it it always just said his name, title and a boring photo of him mid-growl.

Being psychic paper, Sam saw the title, 'Gorgeous Fucker' instead of 'Malcolm Tucker'. Brightened her day no end.

“Can I go home or am I still your prisoner?” Ollie stood in the doorway of the Tardis like a child dragged on a family vacation.

“Your soul is _mine_ , Dobby and I have a few little errands for you to run on your way back to Mummy.”

“My ears aren't _that_ big,” Ollie sighed.


End file.
